The Boy Next Door
by thebooknerdxoxo
Summary: When Clove Birch is forced to move from her bright sunny beaches of LA to the dreary and drizzly suburbs of Seattle she has nothing to look forward to. But then she meets the boy in the house next door whose sandy blonde hair and ocean blue eyes remind her of everything she had back home. Will love come out of this new found friend or will all the complications get in the way?


**So here's my new story. Basically the lay out of this will be that each chapter represents a month apart from this one because this is like the "Pilot" chapter so it'll just be on one day so R&R and let me know what you think!**

Here's all I know about moving, I don't like it. My dad gets a new high paying job and suddenly it's goodbye bright California and hello dreary Oregon. I have to leave my sunny friends, slinky string bikinis and beautiful beaches for judgy strangers, unflattering layers and miles of cold dank woodlands.

We just passed our street in the dreary Seattle suburbs and as my dad takes a U turn I come to question for the hundredth time, whiy me?

"We're here sweetie!" My mum calls as the car pulls up into the driveway. I step out and take a glance at my new home. Old, is the first word that comes to mind. It looks like it was built in the Victorian times and it is practically in the garden of the the twin house next door with only a slim alleyway inbetween.

"Home, sweet home," I mutter as mum hands me some boxes and I head up to my room. I place the boxes in the corner and take in my new living space. The floors all over the house are a deep mahogany and so are the banisters on the grand staircase.

My room is bare with large, thin windows layered with condensation, outdated wiry radiators, cracking old green faded flowery wallpaper and my furniture that was moved over here before the weekend. My dark wood desk faces one of the big windows that looks into next doors wall, what a great view. My dark bookcase is on the other side of the room near the chocolate wood door and the gold framed springy double bed is pressed up against the wall between the two windows that look out onto the woodlands that cloak the entire town. I'm just thankful that my dark red pink silk Paisley sheets and my hundreds of different assorted pillows are already piled over my actual pillows.

" I brought you some more boxes up," my dad says dropping a stack of cardboard boxes next to the ones I already brought up.

"Ah, this isn't too bad is it?" He asks sitting next to where I am on the side of my bed.

"Sure, if you like to catch hypothermia in the middle of the night," I sigh.

"Come on honey cheer up, this move is going to be a good thing," he grins heading to the door.

"Yeah? For who?" I murmur falling back onto my masses of pillows. First thing I unpack is my iPod deck and set it on my desk. Let's get this room sorted.

Finally, I give up on unpacking when I'm on my second box of summer clothes which I know I can never wear again. Then something catches my eye in the window that looks into the other house. I look into the window of the adjacent house, into the room of another teenager. The walls are wooden and the bed is in the middle of the room with faded cream sheets, drapey cream curtains and a cluster of posters stuck to one wall. A flash of blonde hair is all I see of my new neighbour as he walks or of the room.

"Clove, dinner!" My mum hollers from the kitchen and I race down to the dining room. After dinner I watch some TV then try wrestle my way through piles of boxes back up to my room to get ready for bed.

I rummage around to find my box of toiletries and carry that into my bathroom with me. The room has a sort of old clinical clean feeling to it. The bright white walls are too bright, I haven't got to my shower curtain yet so I have to use the bleach white one already there for now and the whole place is just not my en suite bathroom back home that looked out onto the ocean and beach.

After showering, in freezing cold water because my parents haven't sorted out the heating yet I wrap myself in a towel and head back into my room. I change into a loose navy v neck top, red and blue check pyjama shorts and white fuzzy slipper socks before settling into my bed.

"Beep, beep" my alarm rings in my ears kindly reminding me to wake up for hell, a.k.a school. Normal school is bad enough but first day back at a brand new school is never good, especially when you have the whole of twenty minutes to get ready, fuck.

I'm up and teeth brushed in five minutes then I pull on some black high waist jeans, a loose grey sweatshirt that I would use for a cover up back in LA, a blue and green check loose jacket with fleece inside and some tall brown boots before applying s tiny bit of concealer and mascara before bombing it down the stairs into the kitchen.

The room is sort of disjointed, the chocolate wood island is cluttered with boxes and the contents are splayed across the surface. I pull up one of the sleek white bar stools which look far too modern and out of place for this run down room, clear a space on the worktop and grab a waffle.

After I've eaten I have five minutes in which I pound up stairs, grab my beaten brown leather bag and, with a sigh grab my new dark green parka with black fur inside. With one minute to spare I grab the keys from the coffee table, lock the wooden door and head out down the driveway.

"You new?" calls out a deep raspy voice from the street.

"Yeah, how'd you..."

"Guess? The tan, I mean you don't see anyone round here with skin like yours, unless it comes from a bottle." I look up to find a sandy blonde boy standing about a foot in front of me. His piercing ocean blue eyes look at me quizzically, like they're trying to figure me out.

"You headed to Rosswell?" he asks as we start to walk side by side down the pavement.

"Yeah, you too?"

He nods, "Where did you live before?"

"Cali, but my dad got offered a job so he figured he'd let me freeze to death up here so he gets payed more." I shiver pulling my coat tighter.

"Nice, any siblings?" he asks again.

"What's with the twenty questions, I don't even know your name." I reply, not answering his question.

"I don't know yours." He's being difficult.

"I asked first," I grin looking up at him properly for the first time and as I do blue eyes meet green, and he seems to forget what he was saying.

"Y-yeah... Okay I'm Cato, Cato Asher. I live next door to you and I'm a Sophomore Now it's your turn." He grins looking back at me.

"Fine," I sigh, "Clove Birch, Sophomore and not at all enthusiastic about cold weather or walking, speaking of why don't you just drive to school?"

"Why don't you?" He replies again.

I roll my eyes but answer anyway, "Because my car isn't arriving until tomorrow along with the rest of my stuff, now you answer my question."

"No one drives to school around here, it's much quicker to go through the woods."

"The what?" That's when I realise we've veered off the side of the road and we're now walking towards the nearest of the many thick woods.

"Relax princess, there's paths all over the place and the school's right on the other side."

"Right." I sigh as we pass the first tree.

"See, not so bad is it." He grins and I can tell he's rolling his eyes at me.

"So you got in yesterday huh?" He asks, ducking his head from a low branch.

"Yeah, already unpacked quite a bit."

"I know, I could see you, hear you too great taste in music by the way I might need a playlist for that." He chuckles as the light flitting between the trees catches his eyes and they glint like the sun against the salty sea back home.

"Yeah, sure I'll get you it," I sigh and the mood faded.

"What just happened?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, you just got all moody, what happened?" He asks. He wasn't lying about the school being on the exact other side of the woods I can see the concrete jutting out from underneath the tall oaks in the distance.

"I just miss home right now."

"What that big room with the peeling wallpaper and splintery floors." He jokes.

"You know what I mean." I chuckle and my foot hits hard concrete. The school looks newer than everything else in this town, and the building is too nice for the houses round here.

"I know what you're thinking, how come the school is so new when everything else here looks like it's from the Stone Age," he smiles narrowly avoiding getting run over by a glossy red convertible.

"And?"

"And your answer is it was burnt down."

"What?"

"Yeah, some crazy kid torched the place, while building burnt down twenty years ago." He sighs and swings open the front doors of the school.

Now, from here how do I get to the reception desk. "Reception is down the hall, first left." Cato says as we pause in the doorway.

"How do you do that?" I ask spinning to face him.

"Do what?" He asks innocently but by the grin on his face I can tell he knows exactly what I'm on about.

"You know, how you can just tell what I'm thinking before I even say it."

"I'm psychic," he grins, "okay fine, I'm not psychic I'm just really good at reading people."

"Oh, fancy yourself as a psychologist do you?"

"Well I-" he start but is cut off by the reception lady.

"Can I help you?" she asks her red lipstick is smeared on her teeth, her bun is off centre and her eyeliner is wonky. She looks about as bad as I feel.

"Yeah, I'm Clove Birch, here for my class schedule."

"Birch... Oh you're the new girl, I was told you'd be arriving yesterday with the rest of the school." She glares at me with poop brown eyes.

"Yeah, so did I but we got delayed."

"Fair enough, here's you schedule have a good day." She sighs and goes back to taping the keyboard with hideous blue gel nails.

"So, what lesson have you got first?" Cato asks as the bell rings and I dodge hundreds of bodies and pairs of eyes all looking my way. "Erm, Biology with Miss Stodder." I sigh and he leads me up a staircase.

"Me too, what options did you pick?" He asks as we begin to ascend the never ending stairs.

"Er Spanish, Geograpy, History and Drama. You?"

"Same."

"How do lessons work here?" I ask as we burst through a set of blue double doors.

"Nine science lessons and one RE lesson every fortnight with one mandatory PE session a week and we have to pick one language, one humanities, english, maths and science."

"Same as my old school then." I sigh as he leads me towards the door of one of the labs, "F02 right?"

"Right." I slip through the door and the first thing I see is a seating plan.

The teacher is rather large with pin straight blond hair and, judging by the groans I hear from my other classmates, not great at choosing seating plans. I find my name on the board at one of the corner desks, right next to Cato's.

"Looks like you're stuck with me princess."

I sigh and sling my bag down on the counter, "So not my name."

"So don't care." He replies as he hops onto the stool beside me.

"Title, date, learning goal and starter in the front of your books please as soon as they are handed out by the lovely new lady Clove? Right?"

"Yeah" I sigh scooping up the 30 something exercise books.

"This is the information I want on the front of you books when they're passed around." Miss yammers on as I continue with my job.

As I get to the back row I start handing the books down next to this guy who's been staring at me all lesson. "Hey beautiful, where'd you get the tan?" he asks holding onto my hand as he looks as my arm.

"Well I just moved up from LA, we actually have sun over there," I reply shaking out of his slimy grasp.

"So what are you doing tonight?"

"Err, not you." I quip spinning around and walking away as efficiently as I could in slightly damp white converse.

"Something wrong?" Cato asks as I hop back onto my stool.

"Just the jackass in the back corner trying to hit on me." I sigh flipping open my book.

"Oh, that's Marvel, he's a major dick who's probably been with most girls in the year, my advice? Stay away that boy is nothing but trouble," he states coldly glaring into the boy's emerald green eyes.

"Thank for sharing then." I roll my eyes and miss calls for quiet again.

The rest of the lesson is same old, labs I've already done, written notes I've already revised and been tested on and the rest of the day follows a similar pattern. I sit with Cato and his friends for lunch in the courtyard then it's off to english where they talk about the summer reading I didn't do and the day ends.

"Wait, Princess." I hear the same raspy voice from this morning call as I take my first step onto the dirt trail ground that leads to the woods.

"Hi to you too." I sigh still trudging along now through the Rays of light flitting between mossy branches and padded leaves.

"God, I can hardly see a thing," I moan pushing a branch out of the way.

"You think this is bad? Wait until it starts getting dark in the winter." He grins as his heavy feet crunch on the already falling autumn leaves.

"I don't want to." I sigh. The rest of the walk home was a somber affair and when we parted to go to our houses there was a solemn bye before we both headed up the gravel paths to the front doors.

Fast forward about three hours and I've finally got sick of playing catch up so I blast the music and start, shamefully, dancing around my room singing my heart out. I can feel someone watching me and it's not until I spin around to face the window to Cato's room that I see him stood there laughing at me. He gives me a mocking wave and I stick him the finger.

"Great moves princess." I hear him shout as he's lifted up his window. I move over to mine and pull the cream thin linen curtains out of the way.

"Yeah, well I'm sure they're better than yours."

"Too bad you'll never find out!" He smirks and walks out of his bedroom door down the hallway.

"Clove, dinner!" My dad calls from down stairs and I follow the routine I did yesterday. I sit at the long sleek dining table which again looks out of place in this house, head into the living room to watch some TV and then head back up to my room.

When I walk in my room my eyes instantly gravitate towards the window to Cato's room. Only I can't see into his room anymore, the window is down and there is a pice of paper stuck to it with one word written in big lettering.

Princess.

**So that was it for this chapter let me know if you'd rather I focus more on this story or Love Bites first because honestly I can't decide.**


End file.
